Ventura County business representatives are teaming with local educators to come up with new curriculum to better prepare high school and community college students for entry into the work force. The 3-year-old Tech Prep Consortium, one of 88 such groups in the state, is looking to provide students with skills needed for jobs in the business, automotive, manufacturing, communications, public service and health fields, said Phyllis Throckmorton, coordinator of the local consortium.

Hiring plans of Ventura County employers for the first quarter of 1996 are generally upbeat, according to a quarterly study by Manpower Inc. Of the companies responding to the temporary help firm's survey, 23% expect to increase their payrolls compared to the current quarter. In contrast, 13% expect cutbacks. The remainder either declined to predict their plans or said staffing would likely be unchanged from January through March.

The economy in Ventura County is diverse enough that there are a variety of job opportunities, but most of them require fairly extensive training, according to Philip Bohan, assistant director of the Job Training Policy Council of Ventura County. To get the word out about training possibilities, the council has begun to publish a newsletter called "On the Job."

The economy in Ventura County is diverse enough that there are a variety of job opportunities, but most of them require fairly extensive training, according to Philip Bohan, assistant director of the Job Training Policy Council of Ventura County. To get the word out about training possibilities, the council has begun to publish a newsletter called "On the Job."

Hiring plans of Ventura County employers for the first quarter of 1996 are generally upbeat, according to a quarterly study by Manpower Inc. Of the companies responding to the temporary help firm's survey, 23% expect to increase their payrolls compared to the current quarter. In contrast, 13% expect cutbacks. The remainder either declined to predict their plans or said staffing would likely be unchanged from January through March.

Saying the project would put Ventura County's unemployed back to work, nearly 100 construction and trade workers packed a public hearing Thursday to support a proposed crude-oil pipeline from Santa Barbara through the Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys to the southern Los Angeles Basin.

A tragic shooting rampage remains fresh in the memories of those who work at the state unemployment office in Oxnard, but a lackluster job market has kept the facility's staff as busy as ever. For job-seekers on the Oxnard Plain, the recession still lingers, reports Avelina Villalobos, manager of the state Employment Development Department office on C Street. "We're still seeing cutbacks in manufacturing and elsewhere," she says. "And, of course, there are the cyclical layoffs in agriculture.

The statewide economic recovery is sputtering in Ventura County, where high-paying manufacturing jobs continue to dwindle, and the forecast for job growth this decade is modest at best, according to a recent study by the UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project. There has been a net loss of 6,600 jobs in Ventura County since 1990, according to the report, assembled by a team of researchers and graduate students at the university.

Saying the project would put Ventura County's unemployed back to work, nearly 100 construction and trade workers packed a public hearing Thursday to support a proposed crude-oil pipeline that would slice 53 miles through the county. In work clothes and hard hats, the mostly unemployed laborers jammed a Ventura County Government Center auditorium in Ventura and told the California Public Utilities Commission that the $215-million Pacific Pipeline would be environmentally safe.

In yet another sign of a robust economy, Ventura County employment reached record levels last month and its jobless rate plummeted to the lowest point since 1990, the state reported Friday. The county's 4.8% jobless rate for March was far lower than the state's 6.0% rate and slightly below the national rate of 5% for the month, according to the Employment Development Department. And it represents a significant drop from the county's 6.0% rate in February.

Ventura County business representatives are teaming with local educators to come up with new curriculum to better prepare high school and community college students for entry into the work force. The 3-year-old Tech Prep Consortium, one of 88 such groups in the state, is looking to provide students with skills needed for jobs in the business, automotive, manufacturing, communications, public service and health fields, said Phyllis Throckmorton, coordinator of the local consortium.

A tragic shooting rampage remains fresh in the memories of those who work at the state unemployment office in Oxnard, but a lackluster job market has kept the facility's staff as busy as ever. For job-seekers on the Oxnard Plain, the recession still lingers, reports Avelina Villalobos, manager of the state Employment Development Department office on C Street. "We're still seeing cutbacks in manufacturing and elsewhere," she says. "And, of course, there are the cyclical layoffs in agriculture.

The statewide economic recovery is sputtering in Ventura County, where high-paying manufacturing jobs continue to dwindle, and the forecast for job growth this decade is modest at best, according to a recent study by the UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project. There has been a net loss of 6,600 jobs in Ventura County since 1990, according to the report, assembled by a team of researchers and graduate students at the university.

Saying the project would put Ventura County's unemployed back to work, nearly 100 construction and trade workers packed a public hearing Thursday to support a proposed crude-oil pipeline from Santa Barbara through the Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys to the southern Los Angeles Basin.

Saying the project would put Ventura County's unemployed back to work, nearly 100 construction and trade workers packed a public hearing Thursday to support a proposed crude-oil pipeline that would slice 53 miles through the county. In work clothes and hard hats, the mostly unemployed laborers jammed a Ventura County Government Center auditorium in Ventura and told the California Public Utilities Commission that the $215-million Pacific Pipeline would be environmentally safe.

Ventura County unemployment surged for the second straight month and job growth remained stagnant in August, as a troubled national economy and a local housing crisis resulted in a double-dose of bad economic news. About 24,400 local workers had no jobs last month, up 1,300 from July and 1,900 more than in August of last year. That pushed the county's jobless rate to 5.7% from 5.4% the previous month. That compares with 5.3% for August of 2001.

Ventura County's jobless rate slumped to 6.6% in November, the lowest figure for the month in eight years, state analysts said Friday. The last time the county's November unemployment rate slid to such a level was the pre-recession year of 1989, said Dee Johnson, the county's labor market analyst with the Employment Development Department. "Ventura County continues to steadily grow in most all sectors of the economy," she said.